To see what I could see

Sometimes I get lazy when I’m traveling. I’d been out walking pretty much all day, got back to my room around 6:30, and thought about calling it a day. But. There’s this shawarma place just a short walk from my hotel, and it’s always super busy with locals. Insanely busy. And I really hated to give up on figuring out how in the world to order, and of course taste what is clearly well regarded. Following a conversation with myself, where I said something along the lines of ‘you’ll regret it if you don’t try’, I put my shoes back on and sailed forth. In the wrong direction. Twice. There are a lot of options for turns here. So even though the restaurant is really close to my hotel, I took a bit longer than most to get there.

This view awaited me. At first it looks like a huge crowd of people just standing there waiting to get in, and no one is moving. After I stood there a bit though, I could see that it did actually move. I figured out where the end of the line was, although I still had no idea why so many people were just hanging around – not in line, not eating, but not leaving. A short time later, a man also waiting in line told me there is a women’s line and it was shorter. So it was. Being a woman, I went to that line. As we snaked forward, tightly packed but not touching, I studied the menu posted high on the walls without enlightenment. It was all in Arabic, except some prices. There were a few photos but to order I would have to be inside and away from the pictures, so pointing at them wasn’t going to be possible. At this point, I wasn’t sure if I would actually get any food, but I was by then determined to try. I asked the two women in front of me if they spoke any English. Neither did, but a woman behind me spoke up. She offered to help me order. At some point in the very polite scrum, one of the young men taking orders also passed an English menu to me. That would have been helpful indeed, but it was only in English and he didn’t know English. So the usual pointing method left us both in the dark. Fortunately my new friend interpreted for me and it got done. There was another woman behind her who also did not speak Arabic, and I passed the English menu to her as I squished my way out.

I thought they said it would be a wait of 45 to 50 minutes. Then they call out your number. In Arabic, of course. So I set a timer on my phone and figured I would take my ticket up about the time it ran out, and start showing it to people. However, I ran into the helpful woman again, and it turned out she was waiting with her mother, who really wanted to talk with me. We had a lovely chat as we waited, and then about 15 minutes in, Gege took my ticket and hers, and went up through the crowd, coming back with both orders. We said goodnight and went our separate ways.

I’m sitting in a coffee shop, gathering myself to launch the day officially, and knowing I’ll miss this as I return to everyday life and all its busyness. I can see the street from here, just noticed a man ride by on a scooter with his cane tucked in behind him.

I won’t miss the constant horns of taxis as they pass, an invitation to an obvious tourist. I stick to the shady side of the street wherever possible.

There are street sellers everywhere, one thing that appears to be consigned to the lowest of the pecking order is to try to sell small packets of kleenex. A man just offered as I passed, to which I shook my head and just kept going. The offers are endless and nothing is as it seems. Just after I passed him, another man appeared on my left, to say ‘ say la shokran’ which I know means no thank you. But then, he proceeds to suggest a market for me to visit. And that today everything is closed. This is a constant line to try to get you to go where they want, then they either charge for their services or get you to buy things. I’m fair game, being a woman asking who is clearly not Egyptian.

I took the metro to El Zahraa station, which is five stops. I’m trying to keep track on my fingers but I get distracted by all there is to see. I chose the women only car on purpose this time, for ease mostly. Here too we have panhandlers, vendors and apparently a mentally ill woman who began yelling loudly and pounding the door. There are fans but not AC, so I’m already sweaty.

I caught a ride in this minibus, and got lucky by being the last to arrive- I got the front seat and also we left right away. I have to say, these kinds of situations make me nervous, not about safety but about how to communicate and to understand what is said to me. I walked up, showed the driver my map on my phone, and said ‘the National Museum’. He grunted and nodded, reached over to unlock the passenger door, and that was it. With the windows wide open, the breeze felt wonderful. For about 17 cents, I was saved a hot walk in the sun.

I saw about 20 mummies, all Egyptian kings and a couple of queens. Some still had hair, you could see their toes, hands, the faces. Alas, no photos are allowed in that area. I can’t recall the oldest but for sure some were from 1400 BCE. The museum was interesting, albeit fairly limited in the amount of items on display. They were well put together. There is a lovely lake next to the museum that for some reason we could only look at from afar. However the museum was air conditioned. All in all, worth the visit.

The trip coming and going was interesting as well. I got a taxi for part of the way, then wandered through back streets to a metro station. While the back streets were the most interesting, it is also hard to take photos in those places. And then more wandering, with stops from time to time for sustenance and hydration.

It will surprise no one who knows me, but one of the places on my list was the bookstore at the American University Cairo’s old campus. Once inside the gates, a serene, green oasis awaits.

I wish I could share the chaotic, noisy streets of Cairo with you. I took a short video tonight standing in a corner, but still I felt a little uncomfortable doing it. And I’d have to upgrade my wordpress account to share it. It’s a cacophony of horns, people talking, hawkers handing out perfume samples, people eating, and so many pedestrians, cars and motorcycles all sharing the same space. It was 11 at night when I left my hotel, yet there were families out, the stores all open, and street vendors doing business.

I arrived in Cairo via a flight from Casablanca, and after passport control, retrieving my checked bag and going through customs, I emerged on the sidewalk and almost immediately saw that one of the many standing across the street held a sign with my name on it. I used the time in the car on the way to the hotel to work on Arabic numbers, since some of the license plates have both Arabic and, well, Arabic. Our numbers are called Arabic (or Hindu-Arabic), but they are not the ones used by those who write in Arabic. For instance, our 5 looks a lot like a slightly squashed O, and their 2 is a sort of backwards 7. And so on.

I had wandered out in search of food. The shawarma place is clearly the place to eat but – how?

There’s no apparent rhyme or reason to the mass of people working their way inside to order, or how to then retrieve it? So, from raw oysters and Moroccan salad last evening, to a chicken sandwich at McDonalds tonight, that’s how that went. I just wasn’t up to navigating anything that hard.

My hotel is on the 3rd and 4th floors of an old building in old Cairo. It opens onto a dirty narrow street that at first glance appeared to have a large group of young men gathered. As I walked out of the hotel, it gave me pause. However, on closer inspection, the group of young men was largely made up of mannequins.

Mannequins are an interesting topic here. Because of religious beliefs, most mannequins have no face. But then you’ll see a display window filled with mannequins in negligees- with no face. I’m sure we are just as puzzling to outsiders looking in.

For years after seeing Casablanca for the first time, I dreamed of visiting. I’d heard enough times since then that it’s not at all that city in the movie, so I came to Casablanca only as the point of departure from Morocco. Having more realistic expectations, I found the central marketplace, where my lack of French has resulted in me getting raw oysters.

They’re not my favorite anytime, but having just passed a horsemeat stall, and a fish market, and not being sure of food standards, it seems maybe a little dicey. But several people worked together to help determine what I wanted, and so I’m going to cross my fingers.

My hotel overlooks the port, and is right next to the Casa Port train station. Train stations here are architecturally interesting, clean and very busy. Tomorrow I’ll just zip across the street, buy a ticket and ride the train directly to the airport.

This is the Marrakech train station, and the inside is just as interesting.

I am having the hardest time saying Essaouira. It’s a lot like ‘eso-warah’ but what my brain knows, my tongue cannot do. I found myself walking down a street today, saying ‘eso-warah’ ‘eso-warah’, over and over. Still, caught off guard, I stumble on it.

Tomorrow I have a 3 hour bus ride back to Marrakech, and then a train to Casablanca. Google maps has been a bit spotty here, and I really didn’t want to be lost at 6 am on dark streets, so I took a walk to the bus station today. Tomorrow I’ll follow the bread crumbs back.

Only steps from my hotel, a treasure! And then, having been shown to my room, I think I may have squealed out loud when the person opened the windows. I shall sleep tonight to the sound of the Atlantic Ocean.

Later, having taken care of some work, I ventured out in search of food. I confess I’m a little bit tired of tagine and couscous and hadn’t tried bastilla (pastilla) yet. Traditionally made with pigeon, I got mine with chicken (I hope). Surprisingly it came topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon. Not bad, but no need for a repeat either. The salad is known as Moroccan salad, and it is a lot like a salsa. I’ve been eating it daily, which may have contributed to my stomach issues early on. Or maybe it helped, who knows? Olives are served at every meal, including breakfast.

All of Morocco seems to have a heavy French influence, but it seems more marked here than in Fes or Marrakech.

Khobz is stacked in piles, carried about in wheelbarrows, and handled by who knows how many before it shows up in a basket for me and the inevitable flies at the table. None of that stops me, I just close my eyes in a virtual sense, and partake of the manna.

I’m on the bus to Essaouira this morning, with a book and the passing desert to keep me company. I had an interesting conversation yesterday with Noumin, my driver. As we neared Marrakech and the end of our time together, we came back to his prior comment that he had attended university for three years, studying law. Now he told me that need like to be a judge someday, but that it is difficult to be an honest judge in Morocco, because there is a lot of pressure about decisions, and a lot of money to be made of you make the desired ones. He said, “you get a call from a minister [governmental] about changing a decision… it is difficult to say no.”

He then talked about his friend in Florida whom he had hoped to marry and thus obtain a visa to the US. Visas are very hard to come by if you carry a passport from certain areas of the world. However she has married an Angolan, and is now not responding to his WhatsApp messages. We explored his options as he drove. When I asked about France (everyone here is fluent in French), he was quick and firm in his refusal to consider it. “They are racist against Muslims.” Based on what I’ve read, I think he’s right. I had no answers for him, but it made me thoughtful again about the accident of birth, and the scope of options that is largely determined by that. Again, no answers. I know how fortunate I am, especially as a woman, to have been born in the time and place I was. It boggles my mind that it is this way.

I’ve adopted a rollie bag now, picked up yesterday in the souk for 200 dirhams. A thing of beauty it is not.

Trying to see what I had come for, I explained during the drive to Noumin that my father had been a farmer when I was a child. I didn’t say ‘my parents’ as I knew already that he is not able to view women as being in charge. So the fields, the crops, the ways of the farmers, all of this interests me far more than, say, carpet shops. I look at dry stone walls and see a work of art. And I wondered how they make things grow in this rocky soil, but clearly they do.

I’m sitting outside on Jemaa El Fna square, in the shade and it’s about 7 pm. It’s 108 degrees but with the breeze and shade it’s only mildly awful. I am getting a bus tomorrow morning to Essaouira, which is on the coast and promises to be much cooler.

Today was supposed to be a self directed ride in the country and small towns south of Marrakech. Alas, my idea of the day did not align with that of the gentleman’s at the hotel nor my driver’s. I went where, and saw what was ordained. Which wasn’t awful, but not what I wanted. In the end I just went with it, because all things considered, it just was the best choice at the time. Like a lot of heavily touristed places, they have developed a set menu of options. My limited language skills makes it a bit harder too to clarify. Still. Here’s me, slightly disappointed.

I did enjoy the visit to a women’s coop that makes and sells argon and related products.

The almond paste and argon oil mix taste a lot like Nutella, but of course healthier. I was told this is all women owned and run. That warms the cockles of my heart.

We made a regrettable stop at a carpet shop, and a stop at a Berber ceramic shop. There I saw the hard clay, mixed with water, and thrown on the manual wheel. We walked around back in the ghastly heat to see the kiln, with a fire chamber below and holes in the clay floor to allow the heat through. I knew the expectation was that I buy something, and I did. But what I really wanted was to pick through the shards in a pile on the ground. Not sure how I’d have packed those though.

So many impressions, all ordinary and yet not. A father walking hand in hand with two teen age sons. Noumin’s description of his siblings today- echoed by me, that siblings are the true love. The way the drivers, who honk endlessly, wait patiently for a little one or an aged one with nary a beep nor show of impatience. I’m off to see what I can see in my last evening in Marrakech, and then return to my room to pack and do a little work. How can you not smile at this baby donkey?

I’d fallen out of practice at this travel thing. It feels different somehow, like things have shifted and won’t go back to the way they were.

Photos from the trip to Marrakech, and then some wandering in the souks and on the square. The square, known as Jemaa el Fnaa, is huge, but in the evenings it fills with entertainers, juice stands, vendors, and just a lot of people out eating, shopping and enjoying the slight respite from the heat. It was only 100 degrees when I walked to the square at about 9 pm. With the night fallen, and a breeze, it felt pretty ok. I never thought I’d say that!

Today is a quiet day of sorts, with some work to be done, further travel plans to organize, and a high today of 111. I didn’t leave the hotel all morning, focused on getting things done. I sat on the rooftop terrace for breakfast and work, until the heat drove me inside.

I’m off to get food and a rollie bag, such are my grand goals for the day. There’s a haze in the air, but very hot. Today is the king’s birthday, but we tourists carry on and so do the vendors. The square was busy last evening with juice stands (I got mango), cigarette vendors, performances, carriage rides, henna artists and many sellers of ordinary things. Morocco has felt remarkably safe as compared to almost any place, but here in the busy souks and square I make it a point to keep things close. I’m not sure what exactly makes me feel that need here when I didn’t elsewhere, but I’m going with it.

I didn’t look very hard for a lunch place in the hot square, but stepped into the first one that had inside seating with A/C. I was greeted in French, responded without thinking in Spanish, and then proceeded to order food in English.

One dirham is worth approximately 10 cents, which makes it easy to convert quoted prices on the fly. I’m not great at dickering, but I know I must here – or just overpay.